Film (1980; vt Per Aspera ad Astra). Maxim Gorki Studio. Directed by Richard Viktorov. Written by Kir Bulychev, Viktorov. Cast includes Vatzlav Dvorzhetsky, Vadim Ledogorov, Uldis Lieldidzh and Elena Metyolkina. In two parts, 40 minutes and 78 minutes. Colour.
This pretentious, rather naive, Soviet young-adult sf movie typifies many of Bulychev's themes and approaches. It begins well, with a "space Mowgli" – the alien girl Niia – being found by an Earth expedition on a derelict space station; she is unexpectedly well played by a nonprofessional, Metyolkina, a fashion model. Later we have the grim story of her planet, Dessa, where ecological catastrophe has taken place. The capitalist tyranny on the polluted planet is contrasted with a future communist paradise on Earth, which sends a mission of help at the request of Dessa's "progressive forces": the Ecological Space Ambulance team, very specifically not an armed "brotherly" intervention, but peaceful. The high points of the film are its relaxed humour, something Bulychev is good at, and the impressively devastated landscapes of Dessa. [VG]
see also: Russia.
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